Starscream makes his way past the military and seizes Frenzy’s remains, returning them to their Mars moonbase, but not before encountering a failed attempt at creating Transformer-like mecha by Sector Seven. Starscream tried to take the driver for questioning but he didn’t survive the trip through space. Starscream himself barely makes it to the base on low Energon. His plan is to use the stolen All-Spark data Frenzy had to recreate the cube on Cybertron. What he didn’t know is that a group of Autobots found the Decepticon Mars base and are now launching an attack!

What they got right: More of the movie-based toys make an appearance. Wreckage is shown in Frenzy’s data files, having been taken down by the military in the first prequel series. Sector Seven’s failed Transformer mecha is “L.M.-1”, aka Landmine. Among the Autobots on Mars are Cliffjumper and the original movie design of Arcee (who was dropped from the first movie and given a makeover in the second), who did have a toy. Hardtop and Thundercracker also put in an appearance for the Decepticons. We also learn where Starscream was headed during the mid-credit sequence at the end of the first movie.

What they got wrong: The comic couldn’t have known at the time that the movies would have their own take on the space bridge (one of the few things the movie got right among all the other lore they messed up) but I don’t think it’s that hard to explain away.

Recommendation: So far this is working better than the actual movie sequel they gave us. Worth looking into if it ends well.